Update: Ophthalmic Imaging Systems buys bankrupt EMR vendor AcerMed

By Eric Wicklund
12:00 AM

[Update: An earlier version of this article said AcerMed CTO Kamran Ghan had health problems at the time that prevented the company from gaining new funding for its legal battle. Ghan's comments, submitted on November, 25, 2018 are included below.] 

AcerMed, Inc., the once-prosperous ambulatory EMR/PM software vendor that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last September, has been sold.

Ophthalmic Imaging Systems of Sacramento, Calif., a majority-owned subsidiary of MediVision and provider of ophthalmic digital imaging and informatics solutions, announced on Jan. 9 that it has acquired "substantially all of the assets" of AcerMed. OIS handled the transaction through its newly created subsidiary, Abraxas Medical Solutions, Inc.

Terms of the deal, which has been approved by the California Central Bankruptcy Court, were not disclosed.

Based in Irvine, Calif., AcerMed had for close to two decades offered electronic medical record and practice management solutions for medical practices of all sizes and had achieved CCHIT certification before filing for bankruptcy protection, listing $1.2 million in assets and $3.6 million in debts.

At that time, AcerMed Richard Yonis said the company was unable, partly due to the poor health of CTO Kamran Ghan, to gain new funding to battle a lawsuit filed by Medinformatix, a Los Angeles-based healthcare IT provider who claimed AcerMed stole its software code. AcerMed was fined, but not found in copyright violation.  

Ghan reached out to Healthcare IT News in Nov. of 2018 to refute the claim that he had health problems at that time. 

"I did not have any health issues at all. It was a pure fabrication.," Ghan wrote in an email exchange. "As a matter of fact, around the same time frame I ran a full marathon in San Francisco. I never understood where that statement come from."  

While the ruling was then under appeal, according to a press release issued at the time this article was originally published in January of 2008 by OIS, Michael Bina, AcerMed's former CEO, has been named president of Abraxas, and seven former AcerMed employees have signed agreements with Abraxas.

"We are excited to expand upon our current line of informatics offerings through the acquisition of AcerMed's assets and are confident in our ability to further penetrate the growing market for EMR and Practice Management software solutions," said Gil Allon, CEO of OIS. "This acquisition allows us to broaden our reach into new markets beyond our current offering of informatics platforms to ophthalmologists."

OIS officials say they expect to spend about $2 million during the coming year to expand Abraxas' operations in all departments, including R&D, technical support and sales. 

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